I am sure you are aware that there were no punctuation marks in the original. The context seems to show that the question mark is correctly placed at verse 14.
Wheter we put the question mark at 14 or not, I don't believe it changes the message.
Paul got the revelation from God that righteouness was by faith and not by the works of the law. There were other Jewish Christians struggling with the transition from the old covenant of works to the new covenant of grace. Paul and these other Jews had learned all their lives that goodness came from the obedience of the law. Suddenly they were being filled with the Holy Spirit by simply have faith in Jesus.
Paul receives a revelation from God that if a person can receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit by simply believing in Jesus then why should he worry about circumcision and the other ritual laws. This was a very difficult revelation for many of the Christian Jews to receive. Peter even had some difficult with it and at times like in Galatia he succumbed to the zealous Judaizers who demanded that Christians follow the old covenant rituals.
Paul goes on the conclude his thoughts with:
"I am crucified with Christ never the less I live; yet not I , but Christ liveth in me: and the life twhich I now live in the flesh I live by the faith
of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."
So Paul is saying that through the infilling of the Holy Spirit we receive the very faith of Jesus to live according to the will of God.
In the next chapter, Paul goes even further in this new revelation.
28. There is neither Jew nor
Greek, there is neither bond
nor free, there is neither male
nor female: for ye are all one
in Chirst Jesus.
29. And if ye be Christ's, then
are ye Abraham's seed, and
heirs acording to the promise.
This was a tremendous revelation for this once Jewish Pharisee. It
went against almost everthing he had learned in his youth before he received the Holy Spirit.
Paul latter repeats this same concept to the Jewish and Gentile Christians in Rome.
28. For he is not a Jew which
is one outwardly; neither is
that circumcision, which is outward
in the flesh;
29. But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision
is that of the heart, in the psirit, and not in the letter;
whose praise is not of men, but
of God.
Under the New Covenant salvation and the baptism of the Holy Spirit is available to all men who believe. This is the power of the Cross and the foudnation of the new nation called Christians. |
